Fatima, a strong-minded woman, is the lead masseuse of a hammam in Algiers. This is 1995 and the situation is tense in the capital. The day ahead promises to be hectic for all, and for Fatima in particular. Already, while walking to her place of work, she is the distant witness of a terrorist attack. At the hammam, Fatima should feel better, but the atmosphere proves electric in her small enclosed world, she has great difficulty in maintaining order. All the more as Meriem, a sixteen-year-old pregnant girl comes to take shelter at the hammam. And as irate brother, Mohamed, is after her to cleanse his honor in blood.
Three stories set in today's Algeria. In Algiers, Mourad, a property developer is wealthy and more or less satisfied with his lot but he does not know how to make happy those close to him; Lila, his confused ex-wife; Rash, his frustrated second wife; Nacim, his disenchanted son. Djabil, Mourad's chauffeur, has accepted to drive Aicha and his father from Algiers to Biskra where the young woman is to be married civilly. Now, Djabil happens to be Aicha's lover. In Sétif, Dahman, a neurologist, hopes to marry Radia at last. But the promotion he expects seems to be put off forever. He is in double trouble when a woman accuses him of serious wrongdoing.
Follows a handful of characters living in Algiers in the wake of a civil war that lasted throughout the 1990s.
Algiers, 1997. The country is in the hands of terrorist groups, seeking to establish an Islamic and archaic state. Women are particularly affected and oppressed by primitive diktas, who seek to take control of their bodies and control their passage through the public space. While a frenzied hunt for women unveiled is launched, Nedjma, a young student passionate about fashion, is determined to federate the girls of her campus to organize a fashion show braving all the forbidden.